EWI’s annual Worldwide Security Conference (WSC), heading into its eighth year, is a platform to reframe perceptions of international security threats and opportunities. It mobilizes experts from governments, businesses, NGOs, and academia to make practical recommendations for policy change.

WSC began in 2003 as a response to concerns on both sides of the Atlantic about the need to develop a more comprehensive and collaborative counter-terrorism effort. It has since become an annual event in Brussels, and has broadened to cover most aspects of EWI’s work, including:

• countering violent extremism
• protecting people, economies, and infrastructure
• energy security
• building a new East West consensus on weapons of mass destruction

Global Reach

Since 2006, EWI has organized Worldwide Security Conferences in partnership with the World Customs Organization and the sitting Chair of the G-8 (Russia in 2006, Germany in 2007, Japan in 2008, and Italy in 2009). Other partners have included the Club of Madrid, the Royal Institution World Science Assembly, and the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association.

The geographic reach of WSC has expanded every year since the first conference in 2003. With each conference, we have stepped up our efforts to engage new global actors, especially in Asia.

Not Just a Conference

WSC is not just a once-a-year event. EWI convenes series of preparatory and follow-up meetings around the world. We also work to release a steady stream of related publications throughout the year to maintain the momentum of the ideas that emerge in the conference.

The conference attracts representatives from the highest levels of government, business, and civil society around the world. Conference participants and speakers who carry the conferences’ ideas back to a worldwide constituency of policymakers, making WSC an incubator of policy change.